When you want your brand to reach the largest audience across different platforms, where should you maintain a presence? In the digital world there are many areas you can explore, but let’s highlight some of the most important:
You can’t have a presence online without having your own website people can visit. For some this might be only a blog, and that’s perfectly fine if it fits your brand. Your website is the place where you can share as much about your brand as you want, with no restrictions. You are the one who determines what content people access and in what ways. Your website should be easy to understand and navigate so visitors can explore your content quickly and get to the answers they seek without any trouble.
Consider what about your brand is the most important, the message or product you want to share with a first time visitor. That should be the first piece of information they access, encouraging them to learn more about your brand as a whole. Having an engaging homepage will help visitors remain interested, and increase the amount of time they spend on your site exploring other pages. A visitor’s experience on your website will often determine how interested they are in your brand, and whether or not they wish to continue engaging with your content.
Just like a website, social media has become a way to identify whether a brand is relevant and has a good online presence. Potential customers or audience members will seek out your brand across different social media sites to see if you have an account, how active you are, and if you engage with followers. Every brand should have a strong social media policy, dictating what type of content they publish, what they engage with that is related to their brand or competitors, and how they interact with followers that bring both positive and negative comments. A brand’s social media presence sets the tone for what type of brand they are, and has the power to make audience members champions of your brand even if they aren’t directly familiar with your product.
Email newsletters often go hand in hand with a website, because it’s another way to determine what content gets shared on your own terms. You don’t have to hope your audience see your posts on various social media feeds that are populated with countless others. In the case of a newsletter your content is delivered right to your audience who has already interacted with your brand and wants to stay updated. Consider having a set schedule of when newsletters are sent, as well as a standard format and content type. This will allow your audience members to develop a habit of looking for the email around a certain time and interact with the content regularly.
Podcasts provide a whole other audience, one much like a newsletter subscriber that signs up with an expectation of getting regular updates. Creating and hosting a podcast may not work for every brand, but if it falls in line with what you are doing it could be a great resource. Many podcast listeners have developed habits of listening to podcasts while doing other tasks, utilizing them to get updates on everything from current public events to updates within small industries as well as having something fun and engaging to pass the time. Entire audiences and brand champions are built around podcasts, a loyal fanbase that then branches out and interacts with your brand on other platforms.
If you have the opportunity to have your brand featured in an article for a news site, consider the benefits. Though every publication may not align with your brand messaging and values, there are many available that span across a variety of different audiences. Having your brand focused on or mentioned in an article puts your brand in front of people who may not know of you yet, expanding your sphere of connections.
There are many different directions to focus on when you’re ensuring your brand reaches your audience. Starting small and understanding what matters to you and your brand is important, and helps you focus on where you can have the most impact.
